


The Child of Shadows -- A Dragon Age Fantasy

by FlytsOfAngels



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 20:44:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14941071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlytsOfAngels/pseuds/FlytsOfAngels
Summary: Corypheus has just died, and Solas has disappeared.  Taerie Lavellan finds herself alone, hopeless, uncertain of her future.  And still she struggles on, dealing with the results of her relationship with the elven mage, continuing the work of the Inquisition, and fighting to find new love.  Until Halamshiral.  Until he's suddenly there again.  Until there's so much more for her to fight for._______________________________This work is my personal rant against the ending of the Trespasser x-pac.  The logic of the story line completely baffled me, and I'm not trying to make it logical.  I'm just trying to point out where the faults lie, with no hope that any of them will be addressed in Dragon Age 4._______________________________I write a lot about Dragon Age.  If you like this work, please try one of the others.  And, as always, comments are welcome ...





	1. The End, Ever the End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corypheus dies, and Lavellan realizes that her lover has disappeared.

She collapsed to the ground, watching as Corypheus’s body writhed — all of the power and vitality finally drained from it, unable to find a new host for his ancient, vile spirit. Around her, the rocks trembled, losing their remaining magical stability and drifting slowly back into their natural place, and she idly wondered whether the great slashing tears that had ripped the stone from its foundations would be repaired through some mystical process, too. Not that it mattered. There were some foundations that could never be repaired, no matter what you did.

Looking up, she scanned the faces around her, immediately knowing that he was gone. A crack appeared in her own foundations, but she pushed the sob that rose up into her throat back down into the pit of personal despair where it belonged. It would seem out of place if she were to burst into tears right now, because — at last — they had won. Instead, she rose to her feet, lifting her bow from the jutting rock that had somehow caught it when she had at last abandoned her weapon and had resorted exclusively to the bilious green swirl in her palm.

Reaching over her shoulder, she felt for the fletching of the arrows that remained in her quiver and sighed that so few were still safely stowed behind her. She started across the landscape, trying to locate her projectiles, unwilling to part with the weapons that she had crafted by her own hand and decorated with her clan and personal insignia. They were hers. And she refused to leave them here to rot alone.

“Inquisitor!” someone called behind her, a kind of hopeful demand in that voice that she refused to allow herself to hear. “Lavellan?”

She strode away from the question, unwilling and unable to face emotions that she couldn’t feel at the moment. The fact that he was gone chased itself around and around in her mind, and the process of looking for the arrows that belonged in her quiver gave her the time to allow them to race where they would. Always, they came back to the fact that he was gone, that he had abandoned her, and that she was alone once again. Another ending, another time when she was left with no options, another time when she was left on her own. Finding one of her white-fletched arrows lodged behind a shifted pile of rock, she started climbing until she could wrap her fingers around its shaft and pull it closer to her.

“Taerie?” A soft voice came to her from just behind her right shoulder.

“Go away, Varric,” she growled for only his ears to hear. “And take them all with you. Tell them I’ll be down when I’m ready. Make up some tale; we all know you’re good at that.”

“I’m good at listening, too, even though most people wouldn’t believe it,” the dwarf said, moving to a place where she could just see him. She squinted, her close-up eyesight so much less accurate than her distance vision had ever been. It was what had made her pick up the bow for her Dalish clan, what had helped her down game for their communal meals and made her an excellent scout. But it made her feel foolish when she was in intimate conversation with the other members of the Inquisition or when she had to walk away from the edge of the war room table to bring Cullen and Josephine’s markers into focus. Instead of giving herself a headache from the pressure she would have to exert on her eyes to keep Varric’s visage in focus, she looked away from the dwarf’s familiar face and started across the stones again, certain that there were more arrows waiting to be discovered behind the other piles of rock.

“Or you could let me talk, I suppose,” Varric said hopefully, his stocky legs propelling him on a parallel route to hers.

“Just go away!” she moaned. “I don’t have anything to say to you — by the Dread Wolf, I don’t have anything to say to anyone. I’ve done my job, and everything is at an end. Once again, it all ends.”

“Or it all begins again. Have you thought of that? It’s like drawing a blank piece of paper across the desk in front of you. Anything is possible now.”

Taerie laughed, a harsh, barking sound. “You’re the storyteller here. I’m just trying to live a life that continues to be snatched away from me and shaped into the tales that others want to tell.”

“Until today,” the dwarf whispered. “It all changes today.”

“Does it?” the Inquisitor asked. “Could you show me how I get anything that I have ever wanted now?” She stood still, looking down at him, her fists planted firmly against the curve of her hips, her chin stubbornly thrust forward. “Can I return to my clan without putting them in danger? Can I stop being referred to as the Herald of Andraste or the Inquisitor? Can I lo- … love a man and have him believe enough in us that he will dedicate his life to me and me alone?”

Varric’s eyes slid to one side, away from her face and to where the little group of their compatriots was undoubtedly waiting for her. “I didn’t see him leave, either. But we can find him. I’m certain of that.”

“Why bother?” she asked dismissively. “If he had wanted to be with me, this would have been our moment. All of Thedas would have given us anything. All we had to do was ask.”

Varric stared at her for a long moment, his mouth moving as if he were chewing the words that would come out next. But before he could say anything, Taerie broke into the silence. “He obviously didn’t want that. He obviously doesn’t really want me.”

The dwarf rubbed a hand across his face and stared up at the blue sky. Blue. Not tinged by a green glow from the swirling wrongness that had been the Breach. Sighing her appreciation of the naturalness of the sky, Taerie clambered over a pile of stones and gathered up another two of her arrows. She slipped them into the quiver over her shoulder and then climbed back down to where Varric was waiting for her.

“It seemed like he wanted you before,” he said slowly. “Do you know what happened to change … things? Did he give you any clues?”

She shook her head. “He’d been withdrawn since the whole incident at the old elven temple, and I’ve been too busy to do more than climb all of those damned stairs to my bed and fall into a dreamless sleep. Not that I’ve ever dreamed — or at least remembered. Not a mage, as we all know.”

“Do you think he would have stayed if you had been a mage? Was your lack of magic what created the barrier between you two? Honestly?” Varric considered her for a long moment before he continued, “At least we know that he thought that you were adequately elf-y.”

That was true enough. In Taerie’s time with him, he had gone on and on about the heritage of the elves, what it meant to be an elf — he’d even been painting some kind of elven mural all over the walls of his room, one that she might have understood if she had been “elf-y” enough, she was certain. But she had just stared at the pictures, never making a comment, and certainly more pleased when he had called her _“vhenan” _in that room, lingering in the pleasure of knowing that he believed that she had captured his heart. Maybe it had been her failure to comprehend what he had exposed her to through his words and his art that had finally driven him away. But he had so much access to so many other sources of information and lore than she had ever had, and as much as he had been willing to share what he knew with her, he had never been able to understand her internal conflicts between what he said and what she had been taught for years at the feet of the Keeper of her Dalish clan. While her love for him might have opened the door to at least listening to his explanations, her heart still clung to the words of the Keeper, the stories that she had been the basis of her entire life. Her foundation. Now just as cracked as the earth beneath her feet.__

____

____

And her heart? More than cracked. Shattered. Pulverized and pummeled into a thousand thousand pieces that would never all fit together as they were meant to be.

An end. The love that she had felt was ended. And even if Varric and the members of the Inquisition did manage to find him, she could never trust him again, never allow him to hold her close against his chest or press his lips to hers.

The end.

Sagging down onto a pile of stones, she finally allowed herself to meet the dwarf’s eyes. “Don’t let them go after him. It won’t do any good. Remember, he knows the Fade better than any of us, and I’m certain he can negotiate it at will. He’s gone, and if I can accept that, everyone else should, too.”

“If that’s what you want, Inquisitor,” the dwarf replied, “then that’s what we’ll do.”

“Also, go tell everyone to return to Skyhold.”

“But, they’re all expecting …” he argued, but she interrupted him.

“I don’t care what any of you want,” Taerie growled deep in her throat. “All I want is five minutes to myself, Varric. Could you possibly understand that? I’ve just defeated my greatest enemy and lost the man who I thought loved me. Five minutes.”

He nodded and stepped away, turning back to look over his shoulder at her. “Five minutes. I wish I’d been able to fix all my broken hearts so quickly.” Pivoting, he moved away as quickly as he could, blocking the stairway that led onto the plateau where she was sitting, and cheerfully calling everyone to move on to the celebration that was undoubtedly starting without them. The other members of the Inquisition objected, but no one pushed past Varric to approach her, and she sagged gratefully against the rocks.

And then suddenly she was on her feet again, aware in that moment that, if she did linger in one place, she would fall apart. All of the pieces of her heart would lose their temporary cohesion to one another, and a flood of tears would push between the spaces and take over every fiber of her being. With rapid, even strides, she covered the battlefield, searching for her arrows desperately, like an animal trying to escape from a predator.

In the end — another end — she had found all of them that could be salvaged and silently mourned for the ones that had been lost. And then, because she had no other choice, she rose to her feet, headed to the staircase, and ended her role in the hunt for and death of Corypheus.


	2. Curse the Celebration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's supposed to be a celebration, isn't it? But when you'd rather be alone, it's torture.

Taerie stopped on her side of the doorway to her tower room — her sanctuary and place of solace in Skyhold — and tugged at the hem of her tunic, trying to force it into place. She couldn’t quite understand why it didn’t fit properly, unless it was because the Inquisition had finally been able to take a break between the missions that dragged them from Ferelden to Orlais to the Free Marches and then back again. Perhaps she had been ignoring her practice with the bow or her drills with Commander Cullen and the other recruits for too long. But she couldn’t do anything about that now. Today was for celebration!

She sneered at the thought and lean forward so that her forehead rested against the wood of the doorway between her and Skyhold’s great hall. Beyond the portal, just on the other side of this much too flimsy barrier, the other members of the Inquisition were waiting for her. If it had only been them — the men and women who had battled this long year with her to defeat Corypheus — she might have pulled the door open happily and rushed through. She would have lifted any number of tankards of very fine ale or glasses of Orlesian wine to salute their contributions and their ultimate success. And Taerie would have staggered back up these stairs and collapsed onto her bed in a fine mood, perhaps awoken the next morning with a devilish hangover, but that was the price that you paid.

But they weren’t alone. There were ambassadors and representatives from any number of factions across Thedas waiting for the appearance of the Inquisitor, the woman who had destroyed the next great threat to the nations. They were there to make their covert deals with her, offering rewards that she couldn’t — in all good conscience — accept without knowing that she would owe them something in return. Or they wanted to discover how they could now exert their own control over the armies that the Inquisition had amassed over the last months. Or they wanted to simply be in her presence so that they could use even five minutes with the Inquisitor to add a luster to their own reputations.

It was all a masquerade now, like the games that people played with each other’s lives in Orlais. But she was tired of games, tired of hunts, tired of puzzles. All she wanted was to find some little village in the middle of nowhere that had never heard of the Inquisition and sit in the shade of a tree and … do what? Taerie wasn’t even certain that she could remember how to relax now after a year of nearly constant motion.

Straightening once again, she pulled at the handle of the door and entered the great hall. The people who were standing closest to the portal noticed her first, raising a little cheer and lifting their tankards and glasses in a salute to her. Taerie nodded her acceptance of their praise and moved forward, working her way between the long tables that had been set up on either side of the hall. Looking around, she realized that she might be able to walk straight down the space between them and out onto the steps that led into the building, and she made it her goal to avoid being caught up in any one conversation before she had been able to step out into the sunlight and breathe in the crisp, cold air of the courtyard.

“Inquisitor?” a voice spoke softly at her shoulder.

Damnation, she thought to herself. Measuring the distance, Taerie realized that she’d barely made it a third of the way down the hall before she had been caught, and she took in a deep breath before she turned.

Turned to find Josephine standing behind her.

Of course, she had known that it was the Inquisition’s ambassador the moment that she had heard her voice — that uniquely Antivan accent was hard to miss, no matter how Josephine tried to disguise it. The ambassador was dressed in her usual silky shirt with its gathered sleeves, but she seemed to have abandoned the clipboard and candle that she usually carried with her everywhere that she went. Instead, she cradled a cup of some beverage in one hand and a cookie that looked suspiciously like something that Sera might have baked in the other. Raising one eyebrow at the treat, Taerie waited for the other woman to speak.

“Thank you for joining us, Inquisitor,” Josephine said in a low voice that was meant for her ears alone. “I was having trouble keeping some of the emissaries interested in our celebration here without the guest of honor in attendance.”

Taerie crossed her arms on her chest and frowned. “This party isn’t about me. It’s about everything that the Inquisition has accomplished. Together. All of us and the people who gave their lives for the safety of the entirety of Thedas. You could have carried on without me.”

The ambassador shook her head. “You undoubtedly want to believe that, but I’m afraid that there’s only one Inquisitor. The people need a focus for their praise and gratitude, and you’re it.”

“Do you think they could just focus on me from afar and not actually feel that they need to interact with me?” she asked hopefully.

Josephine considered her for a moment and then suggested, “If you really want to keep that much distance between you and our guests, you could go sit on your throne.”

Taerie frowned. “It’s not a throne. I’m not a queen, so it’s not a throne.”

“Certainly,” the ambassador said, an impish smile pulling at her lips. “That’s why we put it all the way at the other end of the hall and raised it up on that dais. Doesn’t give the impression of being a throne at all.”

She rolled her eyes. “In any event, did you need something from me, Josephine? I was actually trying to get to the other end of the hall …”

“To escape from us all, I’m certain,” the other woman teased. “But I just wanted to remind you not to make any agreements when you’re approached by the representatives who are here today. The Inquisition can’t be committed to any other courses of action until we’ve finalized the ones that we’re already engaged in.”

Taerie nodded and brushed one hand across the sleeve of her shirt. “If anyone gets a little too insistent with their requests, I’ll refer them to you. And then you can put them on my calendar for — say — six months from now?”

“Or a year?” Josephine suggested with a little glint of malice in her eyes. “That certainly seems more appropriate.”

Smiling wryly, Taerie started down the hall again, her eyes fixed near the doorway in hopes that those who saw her passing would believe that she was moving to speak with someone who had particularly attracted her attention. In a few strides, she realized that she had nearly reached the end of the tables, and she glanced down at the stones of the floor, feeling a sense of gratitude rise inside of her, because she was almost there. She had nearly made it. Escaped. Avoided another unwanted interaction …

A pair of very large, booted feet landed in the space in front of her and slowly crossed each other at the ankles. Dragging herself to a stop, she followed the beefy calves and thighs up to an equally heavily muscled, shirtless torso until finally she met the gaze of the Iron Bull. He grinned lopsidedly at her, his eyes a little bleary and his smile filled with the impish good humor that she usually associated with him. Stretching his massive arms up over his head, he brought one hand down in a sweeping arc that allowed him to cup his tankard and bring it up to his lips and down the contents in moments.

The Iron Bull’s tankard was a unique thing. Anyone else might refer to it as a bucket or a pail, and Taerie had always been amazed that the Qunari could empty it in a few swallows. And, more often than not, the bucket was filled with a vile-smelling and bitter-tasting brew that could make her drunk with only one sip. Stepping to his side, she was suddenly overwhelmed by the lingering funk of his particular beverage, and she could feel her stomach heave in response. Taking another step, she tried to put a little distance between herself and the tankard and concentrated on suppressing the roil in her gut.

“ _Kadan,_ ” the Iron Bull said, calling her by that term of respect and affection that he had taken to using in their less public moments. “I had wanted to thank you …”

“Please don’t, Bull,” she replied, waving a hand dismissively. “I have just as much to thank you for, and we’d spend the rest of our afternoon recalling the ways that we’re indebted to each other. Let’s not. Have one of the stewards refill your tankard and keep drinking.”

“Is that an order?” he asked, indolently raising a hand and crooking one finger. In the next moment, one of the uniformed servants of Skyhold stepped up to the table and poured his own bucket — a literal bucket — of ale into the Iron Bull’s tankard. The foaming transfer of so much liquid released the smell of the brew into the space around them, and this time — no matter how she tried to resist the urge — Taerie gagged.

Looking around desperately, she realized that she was closer to the doors that led into the main hall of Skyhold than she was to her access to her own chamber, and she turned on her heel and rushed toward the wide opening that the double doors made. She ignored the calls from the guests and the fact that many members of the inner circle of the Inquisition had — nearly as one being — risen to their feet. Pushing forward, she felt her shoulder ram into a masked representative from Orlais who may or may not have looked at her for an apology. How was she to know? And she certainly didn’t care, because her stomach refused to cease its turbulent roil.

Taerie stumbled out onto the landing in front of Skyhold’s great hall, feeling the sudden impact of the brisk chill that gripped the mountains at the altitude where the stronghold had been built in ages past. But even that crisp freshness couldn’t stop the spinning and diving in her gut, and the feeling suddenly increased when the stench from the stables and the gathered humanity struck her. Reeling to one side, she pressed a hand against the wall of the central keep and curled into herself. Leaning over, she vomited the contents of her stomach — as meager as they were — into a corner of the landing.

And then she reeled a step, maybe two, in the other direction and fainted.


	3. Two People at the Same Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lavellan makes some discoveries, with Cole's help.

Taerie stirred and brushed her hand against whatever it was that was resting on her forehead. On other mornings, after days of hard battle, she had sometimes found when she awoke that she had forgotten to remove her helmet, and the hardened leather had reminded her of where she was and the responsibilities that weighed on her. But this annoyance wasn’t stiff and unyielding: it was soft and damp and smelled slightly of wildflowers. Breathing in deeply, she felt the pure, natural fragrance soothe the lingering upset in her stomach. Finally, certain that she wasn’t going to throw up again and embarrass herself further, she opened her eyes.

Vivienne was perched on the bed beside her, studying her with a lingering fear in her eyes. Taerie understood that apprehension, because she had lost people, too, just as the Orlesian mage had lost her husband to a long-term, debilitating disease. But the moment that Vivienne recognized that she was awake, her habitual, shuttered look closed off the expression of those emotions, and the mage rose to her feet and crossed her arms on her chest.

“As long as she has a chance to rest,” the mage stated in tones that wouldn’t allow for any kind of argument, “she’ll recover.”

Taerie looked around, surprised to find so many of the members of the inner circle of the Inquisition in her bedchamber. Her private bedchamber. The one place where people didn’t intrude on her unless she expressly gave them permission. Sighing at one more loss of her privacy — for the moment — she glanced around the room to try to determine how she had ended up here and who else had come along on the climb.

At least she could recognize that Josephine, Cullen, Varric, and Dorian had lingered to reassure their guests. But the other members of the Inquisition had taken up positions all around her, on her chairs and the long couch, in twos and threes, certainly all consulting with each other in low whispers that were designed not to disturb her.

Well, she was awake now, and they could all just take their whispers and go away.

She struggled to sit up, but someone had tucked the blankets across her body so tightly that she could barely move. In the next instant, the Iron Bull was beside her, causing the mattress to sag dangerously to one side while he lifted her up against his chest and fussed with the pillows behind her shoulders. When he was satisfied with his arrangements, he eased her back down onto the cushioning and smiled encouragingly at her, rising to his feet and stepping far enough away from the edge of the bed that other members of the Inquisition could press in toward her.

“How …?” she croaked, suddenly aware of the lingering bitterness of bile in her mouth and throat. Looking around, she noticed a cup on her bedside table, and she reached for it, only to have Sera pick it up and press it into her hand. Smiling her thanks, she took a sip.

“She’s quite capable of drinking water on her own,” Vivienne complained. “She has no fever, no chills. Her skin is the same color that it has always been. Until she exhibits other symptoms, we have to assume that there’s nothing wrong with her. And we all should remember that we have a responsibility to our guests.”

“Yes, yes,” Cassandra agreed, spreading her arms to encompass the remaining members of the Inquisition in that shepherding motion. “Let’s all go. Leave the Inquisitor to a rapid and peaceful recovery.”

Settling back against her pillows, Taerie accepted their well-wishes with as good a grace as she could manage. She watched them leave, once again flowing into their little twos and threes while they descended the stairs, each member of every group taking a moment to meet her eyes and raise a hand or smile their reassurances at her.

Closing her own violet orbs, she let them go and gratefully let the silence surround her once again. They would be there, when she managed to clamber down those stairs again, and she would once again be surrounded by the noise of them, the demands for her attention, the details — always the details — that they expected her to handle for them. Before this life, when she had simply been another hunter in a clan of the Dalish, she had gotten used to the quiet of tracking her prey through the forest or the solitude of a watch post high in the limbs of a tree. This Inquisition had brought her relationships and hardships that she never would have encountered with her clan, and as much as she felt eternally bound to that family, she reluctantly admitted that she was as deeply bound to the people who made up her inner circle here in Skyhold. Still, there was only so much time that she could spend in their company and not feel her skin begin to crawl or her head start to ache listening to the same complaints and the same stories time after time. She needed her solitude — practically craved it — and if it took a moment’s dizziness, it could be worth it. But not the vomiting. She devoutly hoped that she wouldn’t have to suffer through that particular physical reaction again.

And since she thought of it, she quickly did an evaluation of the current state of her unruly stomach. In her experience, unless she had actually had some kind of malady, she had never been the kind of person whose stomach turned at the sight or smell of the natural decay of the forest or the wounds that had been inflicted on her compatriots. So the earlier, insistent roiling of her stomach confused and upset her. Sighing deeply, she opened her eyes so that she could stare at the ceiling above her.

And found Cole staring down at her instead.

“Is it hard to be two people at the same time?” he asked in that innocently inquiring way that he had. She knew that he had to be up in the loft space that was just behind her bed, some strange arrangement for storage that had been built into this room long ago that she mostly ignored when she was actually in Skyhold. His pale, stringy blonde hair hung toward her, obscuring the contours of his face, and it seemed to her that, if he didn’t pull back, his wide-brimmed, floppy hat would slide from his head and land on the bed beside her.

Of all the people in the Inquisition, Cole was the only one that she felt that she could never send away, because he approached the world with an unabashed innocence that Taerie felt she needed to protect and nurture. She smiled gently at his upside-down face and pressed her shoulders into her pillows, contentment finally seeping into her body.

“Don’t do that, Cole,” she scolded him gently. “You needn’t waste your abilities on me. I’m fine.”

The spirit-boy tipped his head to one side, jeopardizing the position of his hat once again, and considered her. “It wasn’t for you, but if it helped …”

Frowning at him, she asked, “What do you mean? You did use your abilities, didn’t you?”

Cole shrugged and pulled back, disappearing for a moment into the open space of the loft. When he appeared again, he had stepped up onto the wooden railing and started walking along its length, his arms spread to help him keep his balance while he wandered from one wall to the other and back again. Taerie watched him while he teetered above her, afraid that at any minute he would plummet headlong onto the stone floor. Desperately, she tried to think of something that would distract him and bring him down off the railing, but her fear for him started her stomach to spinning again, and she closed her eyes tightly, willing the swirling nausea away with all her strength.

“Please come down, Cole,” she begged softly. “You’re making my stomach start to churn again, because I’m afraid that you’ll hurt yourself. Couldn’t you just sit here on the bed beside me instead of balancing on the railing up there?”

“I don’t think there’s room for three people in your bed,” he answered her from the far end of the loft’s railing.

Three people? she thought to herself, trying to puzzle out what he could mean by that statement. Well, perhaps, she argued, Cole was confused as to why she was still being called ‘Inquisitor’ when clearly the original purpose of the Inquisition had been completed. They’d found out what had happened to the Divine of the Chantry when her conclave to end the war between the mages and the templars had been ripped apart by an explosion. And then they’d exacted their own justice on the creature that had caused that release of chaotic energies that had literally ripped a hole in the Veil, the division between the world of dreams and spirit and their real world. The Inquisitor wasn’t necessary any longer, was she? So why wasn’t everyone else simply willing to admit that?

She opened her eyes and found the spirit-boy passing above her head. “I can move closer to the edge of the bed, if that would give you enough room. Are you sure you don’t want to sit down here with me?”

“I’m fine up here. I won’t fall. You know that.”

She shrugged. “If you say so. I suppose you would be a very bad kind of rogue if you couldn’t keep your balance on such a wide piece of wood.” While she watched, he reached the end of the loft railing that was closest to the tall windows that opened onto the balcony that overlooked the sheer plummet that formed the back edge of Skyhold’s defenses. She’d always experienced a kind of lightheaded uncertainty when she had walked out onto that balcony, mostly because the details of the distant snow caps and the crenelations of the stronghold’s towers were so much more distinct to her than even the curves of the stone railing were. But she had gotten used to the distance, used to the eager flutter that would fill her body when she stepped out into what should have been sky and studied the pink and golden glow of a setting sun reflecting off the eternal, frosted beauty of the mountains around them.

Suddenly, she recalled that she’d never actually shared her view with her lover, that he had always been the one in control of their interactions — except for that first time when she had impulsively kissed him — and so she’d never really had a clear idea as to his feelings. Even in the end, when he had seemed so determined to push her away, she had persisted in her visits to his tower room, hoping for another moment of intimacy like the ones that had seemed to draw them both so much more tightly together. But no. It was over. The end, just as she had told herself on the mountaintop after they had kill Corypheus.

She felt the pain of his abandonment again, and she let out a low moan, curling onto her side and tucking her knees up toward her chest. In the next moment, she felt the gentle touch of fingertips against the side of her head, and she opened her eyes to see Cole staring at her with a little frown on his face.

“Does it hurt to be two people at the same time? I’m very good with the hurts, if you want …”

“No,” she sobbed, feeling the tears slip sideways across her nose and onto her pillow. “I can live with this pain. Just one person. Just one pain.”

The spirit-boy shook his head. “There are two people. One pain, yes. And you can’t share it.”

Taerie stared at him, her confusion growing with every word he said. “There’s only me in this bed, Cole, and I would never want to share this pain with you. It would hurt you much too much.”

“I understand,” he replied, pressing his hand onto her head. “The other person can’t understand yet and can’t share the pain.”

“Other person?” she asked, bolting upright in her bed and snapping at him without truly meaning to hurt him. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, and I’m getting upset, because I don’t know …”

Cole smiled gently and pulled the blankets away from her body, then urged her to lie back with the pressure of one hand. Leaning closer to her, he tucked one of his ears against her lower abdomen, his face turned away from her, his hat tipping at a crazy angle until it slipped from his head. Taerie wanted to push him away, to scold him for this unwanted intrusion, but a cold realization suddenly ripped through her and she froze in place, unwilling to believe what her mind told her was true.

Until Cole started to speak.

“I told you it’s another person. A very tiny person, but I think it’s growing. Right here, inside you.” Sitting back, he looked over at her and smiled, and she was honestly too stunned to say anything. Then, suddenly, his face became very serious, and he continued speaking. “But I do want to know whether it hurts. Is it hurting you to be two people at the same time? Because I might be able to help with that, if you wanted me to. I might be able to make that other person disappear …”

The nausea.

The sensitivity to smells.

The fact that her tunic didn’t want to fit across her hips properly.

A new kind of sorrow settled into her bones, and she sighed deeply. Not an end, then, she told herself. Something completely new and different. Just like Varric had said, it was a beginning.

Reaching out, she cupped Cole’s cheek in one hand and smiled sadly at him. “No, Cole, it isn’t hurting me to be these two people at the same time. It just means that I’m going to become a mother. There’s a baby growing inside me.”

Cole looked at her, his confusion obvious on his face. “A mother? How will you become a mother? What did you do?”

And then, because she didn’t quite understand how it had happened herself, she slowly and carefully explained the birds and the bees to the mysterious spirit-boy.


	4. And Another Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lavellan and Cullen discuss how to deal with the armies of the Inquisition. And other things.

She leaned her elbows on the railing of her balcony and stared down at the bustle of the courtyard of Skyhold. At least the parts that she could see. It had been two days since her fainting spell — which Taerie called it so that she didn’t have to think about the vomiting, too — and she had managed to avoid repeating both the dizziness and the other unfortunate side effect of being pregnant. Of course, she had used the episode to give herself that chance to be alone, her solitude interrupted only by the occasional servant who brought up a tray of fairly bland food or refilled the pitcher of water on her bedside table. She had eaten sparingly of the things that were delivered to her, just enough to not draw anyone’s particular attention, but it seemed to have satisfied them. They had stayed away, giving her the time to consider her options and try to resolve her remaining feelings about her lover. Her absent lover. Her runaway lover.

Whatever he was, he was gone.

In her solitude, she had wrestled with her desire that he should return — suddenly appearing on the bridge to Skyhold with his hands raised in submission to the will of the Inquisition. Or to her will. Either one would have been acceptable to her in those moments when she daydreamed about the ways that she would make him suffer for abandoning her just when she might have needed him most. Perhaps that had been his point, to leave her on her own in the flush of the success of the Inquisition to find a way forward for the people around her without considering his needs in the process. In many ways, he had made it easier for her, because she could concentrate on what the Inquisition needed, what to do for and with the refugees who had crowded into the open spaces in the keep and the disused corners. In all honesty, she had even found families crowded behind the iron bars of what had once been the stronghold’s dungeons, situated as they were above the waterfall that poured through the space between the cells. It seemed that every open space had become someone’s bedchamber, except during the day, when their rolls of blankets were stowed in dark corners so that the members of the army of the Inquisition could train or repair their equipment or study the tactics that might bring them victory.

_Did_ bring them victory.

But what did the victorious army do when the enemy had simply disappeared? Yes, she could send them out to hunt down any remaining groups of Corypheus’s forces, to bring them to submission to the will of the Inquisition, but she had always reasoned that — if they were actually smart enough — they would simply blend back in with the mass of humanity, taking their talk of different forms of government and freeing demons from the constraints of the Veil with them into the shadows. Until someone with enough power and resources emerged, those who had rebelled this time would keep their own counsel and find those who were of a like mind where they could, but they wouldn’t act. Not until a new head rose from the corpse of their former leader and took up the reins to control those who couldn’t act on their own.

And a new head would arise. Some day. But not any time soon.

Which made the armies of the Inquisition obsolete.

But what was she to do with them?

In all honesty, so many of the men and women who served in the ranks of the Inquisition had nothing to return to in their homelands. Their farms had been burned by mages or templars or the unrelenting forward motion of the armies that Corypheus had managed to gather around him. If the surviving members of those families were lucky, when or if they returned home, there were enough honest representatives of their kingdoms left that they would still be able to claim the lands that they had abandoned in their desperate flight to escape destruction. If not, what was there for them to return to claim? Where could they go if their farms and their shops and their fishing boats had all succumbed to the war? What were they to do after they had left everything behind — including any sources of income — in search of any kind of protection or security? How were they to rebuild without some small seed of gold to cushion their start?

Taerie considered the options that she had, crossing her arms on her chest and leaning her hip against the icy stone of the railing of her balcony. There might be something she could do, if only …

“Inquisitor?” a male voice called up to her. She replied, giving him permission to mount the stairs, but she stayed where she was, turning to gaze out across the mountains once again.

“You’ll have to forgive me for disturbing your rest,” Commander Cullen said while he moved out onto the balcony beside her. “I wouldn’t have come up if I didn’t need your decisions on some issues with the army, Inquisitor.”

“They can’t wait?” she asked, knowing the answer even while the words were leaving her lips. Cullen Rutherford was more than capable of directing the motions and training of the armies of the Inquisition; he had proven that during the last year of their battles with Corypheus. But he had already been hinting that there were choices that he needed to consult with her about, and he obviously had decided that he couldn’t wait any longer.

Shaking his head, he confirmed her conclusion. “I’m afraid not. We’ve reached a point where too many of the members of our army know that there aren’t any immediate battles waiting for them, and they’re beginning to question their commitment to the Inquisition. It was all well and good for them to serve when there were few other choices, but the world has nearly righted itself. They’re wondering whether they can’t return to the lives that they had led before.”

Taerie nodded. “I’m not surprised, but I had hoped that we might have another week or so. I have an idea of how we can deal with this, but I would appreciate your input, of course.”

He stepped closer to her, and she thought that his eyes scanned her face, but it was hard to be certain when she couldn’t see his features clearly. “Wouldn’t you like to sit down? We can continue this discussion at your desk or on the sofa?” When she shook her head, he added, “If you’re determined then … what do you propose we do for the armies?”

“I’m certain that we have more than enough in the treasury of the Inquisition to buy out any man or woman who wishes to leave our army. If someone desires to return home, we need to accept that they’ve served as best they can and reward their courage in taking up the banner of the Inquisition.”

Commander Cullen nodded. “I agree. I can start with the older companies, releasing those who have served longer first. But there have already been some desertions. What should we do about them?”

“Well, first of all, we’re not going to call them ‘deserters,’ Cullen,” she said with as much humor as she could muster. “And then we’re going to let them go. Create a group of messengers — trackers would probably be best in the end — and give them the mission to find each of the ‘deserters.’”

“But you just said that we’re going to let them go,” the commander said with a question in his voice.

“Yes, we are. Send the messengers to track down our deserters and give them their buyout from the armies of the Inquisition. A _reduced_ buyout, of course.”

Cullen chuckled. “They’ll talk eventually, you know. Somehow, somewhere, they’re bound to run into someone else who was part of the Inquisition.”

“And then they’ll discover how generous we could have been to them if they’d just bothered to trust us with their futures for a few days longer. Also, you should consult with Josephine and develop some kind of scale based on time in our service for the buyouts.”

“That makes sense. Even though we would expect anyone receiving a payout to leave immediately, we can’t risk any bad feelings if someone feels that we didn’t value their extended service to us more than someone who served for mere weeks.”

“The goal, in the end,” she explained, “is to give anyone who served enough gold to be able to start fresh.”

“What about the merchants and crafters who came to us? What are we to do with them?”

She rubbed the tips of two of her fingers against her forehead and considered the question that Cullen had raised. Most of the merchants had actually benefitted by offering their goods and services to the members of the Inquisition who could afford them, but there had also been moments when they had responded as generously with what they had available as anyone could want. “Consult with Josephine. If she can identify someone who’s actually profiteered during the war, don’t reward him or her. Otherwise, determine an equitable amount and send anyone who wants to leave away.”

“And the ones who want to stay?”

“Continue the drills, make certain that all our repairs are made, and outfit any new recruits.” Laughing lightly, she reached out and touched his shoulder. “I feel like I’m telling you how to do your job, Cullen, and I certainly don’t want to do that.”

She was moving away from him when he surprised her by grabbing her hand in one of his own. Looking over at him, she tried to meet his eyes, but he was determinedly studying her fingers. A pleasant little tingling started racing up her arm, and she wondered at the sensation. She hadn’t felt anything like that since the last time that her lover had touched her, and she hadn’t even considered that she would feel like that with someone else. Especially so soon after she had known that her lover was gone.

Finally, Cullen looked up at her and smiled crookedly. “I wanted to thank you,” he said slowly, “for your support while I was weaning myself from lyrium. It has meant everything to me that you have believed that I was capable of such determination, and I think that I’ve found a way to repay you.”

“That’s not necessary,” Taerie replied. “I needed you at your best, and I was willing to do what I could to make that happen.”

“Nevertheless,” he said, maintaining his hold on her hand while he reached into his coat. Slowly withdrawing something from a pocket on the inside, he turned the hand palm up and placed a linen-wrapped box on it.

“What? What have you done, Commander?” she asked, pleasantly surprised that he had thought of her. With eager fingers, she ripped the fabric bow open and slipped the pieces of the box apart. Inside, nestled on a piece of deep purple silk, she found a pair of glass circles that were connected to each other by a few pieces of wire. But she had no idea what they were.

“I … thank you?” she said questioningly.

He smiled gently at her. “Here. Let me help you, Inquisitor.” Picking up the metal and glass, he stepped closer to her and pulled the circle pieces apart slightly, placing the contraption on her nose. Looking up at him, she gasped, suddenly aware of the details of his face that had always been obscured to her. Impulsively, she reached out and traced her fingertips along the deep lines that radiated out from the corners of his eyes and the worried gouge that had permanently been pressed between his eyebrows. She had never even considered how ruggedly handsome his face actually was, especially when it had been obscured by the fuzziness of her close-up vision. Then the sudden awareness that she had been caressing his face gripped her, and she felt a blush rush into her cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Cullen,” she apologized, snatching her hand away as if she had been burned. “I didn’t mean to be so rude.”

He smiled at her and took the hand that had just flown away from his face, pressing it once again to his stubbly cheek. “You needn’t apologize. If I’m completely honest with you, having you touch my face was everything that I could have wanted from giving you that gift. I know that most people would consider that I’m taking an unfair advantage of you, because you’re still grieving the loss of …”

“Please,” she interrupted him, dropping her hand to her side. “Don’t say his name. He doesn’t exist for me any longer, so there’s no reason to speak of him.”

Cullen sighed. “You may say that, but I’m certain that you loved him.”

Turning her head, she looked out across the mountains, but the pieces of glass in the wires made everything that she could usually see so clearly blur and fuzz like her close-up vision used to do. To compensate, she tipped her chin down slightly and looked over the top piece of metal, sighing gratefully when the mountains returned to their usual crisp focus when she wasn’t looking through the glass. Surprised that such a little adjustment could solve the problem, she looked back up into the commander’s face and saw that he was frowning at her. Suddenly, she realized that she hadn’t answered his question, and she inhaled deeply.

“I was certain of that, too,” she said slowly, unwilling to let the pain that had been gripping her since Corypheus’s final death take hold of her again. “But he chose to ignore what I felt for him.”

“What a fool,” Cullen whispered, bringing one his hands up to cup her cheek. “Doesn’t he realized what he’s given up?”

Looking at him through the pieces of glass, she could actually see the expression in his eyes, some combination of concern and longing that he was willing to show her. And for once, those emotions were clear to her. All because of two pieces of glass and a bit of wire. The wonder of it filled her mind again, but she pushed it to one side, determined to keep her thoughts on what Cullen was saying.

“Why? What do you mean?” she asked, desperate to understand.

He sighed again. “I know that the Inquisition is coming to an end, but I need you to know that there are some things that I don’t want to give up. Some people. Some people who have become very dear to me, in spite of the other relationships that they chose.”

“What?” the Inquisitor gasped. “You mean … you can’t mean …”

“Taerie,” he said, his voice falling to a whisper. “You believed in me when even I doubted myself. You cared when others would have urged me to maintain the status quo, and you supported the choice that I made when it probably wasn’t the best idea for the safety and success of the Inquisition. Some people might say that I’m only grateful, but I believe that it’s more. And I’d like to claim the opportunity to prove to you that I truly care.”

Stepping closer, he gathered her into his arms, but she wasn’t ready to accept everything that he was offering her with that motion of intimacy. She leaned forward so that one of her long ears could press against his chest, but that was all that she could do. Her arms hung limply at her side while her mind whirled, trying to understand how Commander Cullen was trying to change their relationship.

“I know that I might have made a mistake in coming to you like this,” he admitted, the sound echoing strangely, intertwining with the pounding of his heart that she could hear because of the placement of her ear. In the next moment, she felt his fingers slip into her short black hair, and she let her eyes slip closed. “But was there ever really going to be a good time for this admission?”

Laughing softly, she tried to shake her head, but stopped when she felt his fingers tighten. “No, never a good time. My question would be whether there could be a worse one.”

“Why?” he asked, lowering his head so that he could press his cheek against the top of her head.

She leaned away from him, allowing him to continue to cradle her in his arms while she looked up into his eyes. “You know that I fainted and … and threw up … It wasn’t because I’m sick or the food affected me badly. Cole has told me, and I have to believe what he’s discovered. I’m … I’m not saying this to hurt you, Cullen. But I think it’s only fair that you know the entire truth before you offer any kind of commitment to me. I’m pregnant.”

He stilled, frozen by the words that he had just heard, and she felt her stomach plummet toward her toes. Certain that he was about to reject her, knowing that there was no heart in all of Thedas that could love a woman who was carrying another man’s child, she started to pull away from him. She didn’t want to hear the words that would come out of his mouth, the admission that what he believed that he felt had been an illusion, a momentary surge of gratitude that he had misread.

But his arms didn’t fall away. In fact, he actually tightened his grip on her, lowering his forehead so that he could press it against hers. Even the power of the miraculous pieces of glass couldn’t bring his face into focus, and she let her eyes slip closed, holding her breath until he started talking again.

“That still gives me any number of months to care for only you, doesn’t it? If you’re willing, we could start there. Just the two of us.”

“Yes,” she agreed, feeling him press his lips against her forehead. “That would be a wonderful place to start.”


	5. When the Time Comes

Leaning in an arc, one hand braced on an edge of the wall behind her desk in her room in Skyhold, Taerie tried to ease the ache in her lower back, stretching the muscles that she was using in ways that she thought she should be used to by now. After all, it was past her time — at least from what she could estimate based on the date of her only intimate encounter with her lover — and her body had been bearing this burden for months now. But as much as she was tired of being pregnant, she wasn’t at all certain that she was ready to actually deliver her child. She’d seen enough births in her clan to know that it was always an iffy thing, a process that could seem completely naturally or twist unnaturally depending on so many things.

The pain weighed on her even more, because she was completely idle. The Inquisition was still busy, clearing out lingering pockets of demons or trying to talk some sense into the mages or templars who still seemed determined to wipe each other from the map. Until the last month, she’d been allowed to travel with her troops, leading them into battle with her bow and the swirling green wrongness that still pulsed in her hand. But after she had returned from the last mission, Vivienne had argued that her condition was too uncertain for the Inquisition to allow her to leave again, and unfortunately, everyone else had agreed with the mage, no matter how she tried to argue.

It hadn’t been completely unpleasant to spend her days in her room in Skyhold, especially when her friends chose to make the climb from the great hall all the way up to her room. Commander Cullen was her most frequent visitor, of course, even though she hadn’t let him do more than kiss her hand or her cheek. Or rub her feet. That had been the most wonderful thing that he had been willing to do for her, and she had accepted every time that he had offered, moaning in pleasure at the pressure of his fingers. She often wondered at his self-control, because he never pressed his attentions on her, seemingly contented to entwine his fingers with hers or drape an arm around her shoulders when they were alone in her chambers.

He had also assumed the responsibility of teaching her to read, which was a skill that she had never thought to master. The Dalish told their stories as part of a long, oral tradition of their lore, and if they were written down anywhere, she had never seen a volume of their tales. Skyhold had an extensive library, including some volumes of Varric’s novels, but she hadn’t tried any of the books there yet. Even after so many months, too many times the characters eluded her ability to string them together, and she still struggled with the idea that she hadn’t learned to read until this number of years of life, especially after Cullen told her that it was a skill that most Ferelden children mastered before they were old enough to work in the fields.

At some point in her search for new stories that she could decipher by herself, Cassandra had told her about a romance series that Varric had written, and Taerie had asked to borrow the first volume. But when she had stumbled over the words, she had needed to ask Cullen to help her, putting him in the position of reading to her about things that she was certain that he actually wished that he could do to her.

Still, he forbore to press his attentions on her. And sometimes, she wished that he could only once loose the hold he had over himself. Because she was pregnant — at least that was the excuse that she gave for her longings — she would go through times when she yearned deeply for the pleasure that she might find in Cullen’s arms. But she knew that she couldn’t simply use him for the release that he could provide. Over the months of her pregnancy and through his many, many displays of his caring for her, Taerie had begun to realize that she could care for Cullen in return, but still she held back, uncertain whether the birth of her child would actually drive the final wedge between them and send him rushing away in much the same way that her former lover had left her among the rocks. She might have been able to recover from that first abandonment — especially because she had had Cullen to help her — but a second? She doubted that it could be possible.

“Taerie!” she heard her name called and turned with a smile already forming on her face when she saw Cullen bounding up the stairs toward her. Opening her arms to him, she allowed him to sweep her up against his chest and spin across the floor in large, looping circles with her toes flying out behind her. Laughing, she wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him until he at last stopped and allowed her feet to return to the stone floor.

“I’m quite certain that you can’t spin this baby out of me, Cullen,” she giggled at him, clutching his shoulder with one hand while she waited for the swirling in her head to settle. When her equilibrium reasserted itself, she stepped away from him and said, “I think there’s still this entire process that I'm going to have to go through — Vivienne’s been very graphic in all her warnings — and spinning was never part of her explanations.”

“Yes, well, that’s _Orlesian_ advice for childbirth, and you’ll remember that I’m Ferelden. We have our own mysterious ways of bringing babies into the world, out there in the countryside.” Removing his coat, he dropped it over the back of the sofa beside the railing in her bedroom and threw himself down on the cushions. Tucking his hands behind his head, he closed his eyes and sighed deeply.

“Tough day, then?” Taerie asked, moving to stand near his head. Suddenly, her fingers itched to tangle in the stiff waves of his hair, but she linked them together in front of her instead.

“Not for me. The usual: drill the troops, fill out reports, wonder when you’re ever going to deliver this child. Harder for Josephine.” Opening his eyes quickly, he found her standing above him and then just as quickly shut them again. “It seems that our ambassador has had to answer a number of accusations against the Inquisition since your last mission away from Skyhold. Some people believe that we’re simply living off the largesse that we’ve been provided with by any number of our supporters.”

“What?” she snapped, recalling how tight-fisted they all had been in the last months. “Who’s been …”

“Yes,” Cullen interrupted her. “It seems that, after seeing you in your uniform, some people believe that you’ve been growing fat off of the bounty …”

She didn’t let him finish. Instead, she took a couple of strides and plopped herself straight down onto the middle of his stomach. His breath _whuffed_ out of his body, and he brought his hands down to scoop her knees up and urge her to recline across him, her head on his shoulder.

“People can be quite cruel,” she complained softly.

“Especially when we don’t tell them the truth and purposefully try to deceive them by dressing you in the wrong size clothing,” he agreed. “But we’ve managed to keep our secret for this long. Even if it does mean that I’m courting the fattest elf ever seen in Thedas.”

“If you keep up that kind of talk, I might just have to try to maintain my size after the child is born. For the good of the Inquisition, I must continue with the deception, mustn’t I?”

Cullen seemed to have shaken his head, because she could feel his entire body move. “I forbid it,” he replied. “I want you back training among our archers within the month.”

“A month!” she gasped in pretended outrage.

“A Ferelden farmwife would be back in the fields by the end of a week. Isn’t it the same in your clan?”

Taerie was surprised to feel a surge of longing for her Dalish family; after all, she was about to bring another member into the world, but unless she took some dramatic actions, her child was never going to know his or her clan. Perhaps, when she had recovered, she could ask the members of the Inquisition to make some inquiries as to where they were and then she and Cullen could take the child to visit. It would feel good to sit at the feet of their Keeper once again and listen to the stories that had defined her life until …

Until her lover had tried to convince her that being an elf meant something else. Something that seemed so much more than what she had been taught, but also so much less, because something had always been missing in the things that he had told her. She’d never actually been able to define it when he had been part of the Inquisition, and now she knew that she would never know. Better to return to her clan and remember the things that had helped her become the woman who she was today than to linger on the questions that she would never have answered.

“Where have you gone, my sweet?” Cullen whispered, bringing one hand down to play with the strands of her black hair. “If you’re really so overwhelmed by the idea of returning to your training with the Inquisition in only a month, I might be willing to extend your recovery. Say for another week or two? Does that sound more fair?” Both of his arms tightened around her, and his voice tried to sound threatening when he spoke again, but all she could hear with the hopefulness in his familiar voice. “And of course, there will be a very steep penalty for you to pay for my leniency.”

“Really?” she asked. “Will I need to ask Josephine for a loan from the coffers of the Inquisition?”

“I have a more personal penalty in mind. Do you think that, after our … er, I mean … uh, your … child is born, that you could finally allow me to kiss you?”

When he stumbled over his words, Taerie felt a surge of pleasure race through her. Somewhere inside of him, some part of him that was completely natural and not bound by his templar training, there was a place that had already accepted the child as his own, if only because he cared for her so deeply. Because he loved her. Because even over these long months while she had held him at arm’s length, his passion for her had continued to burn. Lifting her head from his shoulder, she moved so that she could look down into his face, but it was blurry and undefined, because she had left her spectacles — at least that was what Cullen had told her that her glass discs in the metal frames were called — on her desk. She brought one hand up and traced the contours of his beloved face, lingering on the soft line of his lips, because somehow, she couldn’t feel brave enough to meet his anxious eyes. Lower on his body, somewhere where her thighs were tucked together sideways against his hips, she could feel another hopeful longing begin to stir inside of him, and she could feel her own body respond, eager to find that fire that could burn between them and stoke it into a blazing inferno that might consume them both.

After, another part of her mind argued. After the child comes and you know whether he actually is a man of his word or he will leave you behind like that other one did. After you know whether he will crush your heart once again, leaving you to drag the pieces back together while you care for a newborn alone.

Leaning forward, she pushed her doubts to one side and brought her lips to within a whisper of his own. “There is nothing in all of Thedas that would please me more than to have you kiss me, Cullen. But I thought I might try it out first.”

With those words, she lowered her lips to his and, for the first time, truly kissed him as lovers do.

It seemed at first that she might have frightened him, because she could feel his body jump beneath hers but then he was deathly still. Fearing that she had made the wrong decision, she was about to pull away when he moaned, his arms tightening around her and his mouth opening to allow his tongue to seek hers. Together, their kisses stroked and teased together in a dance that seemed even older than the tales that the Keeper told around the nighttime fires. And a fire started inside of her, some primal part that had longed for this pleasure and would continue to long for it for as many years as he was by her side. Curling one hand around the strong column of his neck, she tried to drag herself closer to him, to lose herself and all of her doubts in the comforting strength of his arms. Cullen tried to help as he could, using the well-trained muscles to bring her closer while he continued to explore the treasures that he could find when her lips were open to his.

She would have allowed the kiss to go on and on, perhaps even let him lift her in his arms and take her to the comfort of her bed, but a pain suddenly raced through her body. Pulling away from him, she gasped and brought the hand that had been curled around his neck down to press against the swelling of her pregnancy.

“What? What is it, my love?” Cullen asked, real concern obvious in his voice.

“I think,” she said slowly, still struggling to understand the pain that she had just felt, “that someone else approves of your penalty. Because my waters just broke.”


	6. Halamshiral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lavellan considers her options and then Cullen brings her a dog.
> 
> (Yes, because I love Mabari.)

From the shade of an overgrown bower, Taerie watched her son toddle toward his nursemaid, a sweet dwarven woman, Beryl by name, who had come to the Inquisition with a group of traders. At the time, the core members of the Inquisition had all been trying to devise a way that she could return to her public duties. It seemed clear to everyone — except her — that they needed a wet-nurse for the Inquisitor’s son, a woman who either produced too much milk for her own child’s needs or had lost a baby very recently and would be willing to take up responsibility of feeding someone else’s. Everyone had sighed in a kind of sad relief when the dwarven woman’s daughter hadn’t survived the birthing process, and she had agreed to serve as nursemaid to the little elven boy whom they claimed they had found abandoned in a wood and that the Inquisitor had adopted as her own.

Taerie didn’t know whether their deception ever really worked: she had learned that there was a kind of knowing that mothers had that went so much deeper than the surface facts that were presented to her. But she didn’t care. Beryl was as loving and attentive to the needs of her son as she would have tried to be if she had been able to devote herself to him every hour of every day, and Cullen had certainly made himself a permanent part of the boy’s life. But she still had the Inquisition to manage.

At least until now. The next few days might change everything. 

The Inquisition had been summoned to Halamshiral, the ancient kingly seat of the Dales and the current Winter Palace of the Queen of Orlais, to determine the fate of their organization. Because there had still been a need for the services that her armies and the green swirl of power in her hand could provide, her inner circle had continued to pursue their duties much as they had during their battle with Corypheus. But people had begun to question where the Inquisition’s loyalties lay — whether the actions that she had been forced to take to ensure the succession in Orlais meant that they were actually committed to the defense of that kingdom. Ferelden considered the Inquisition’s position in Skyhold as something of an occupying army that had assumed lands and fortifications that didn’t belong to them and that were meant to give them a vantage point for a future invasion. Taerie wondered who in their right mind had been spreading those outrageous rumors — after all, she and Josephine had worked so very hard at maintaining the Inquisition’s neutrality in all issues of statecraft over the last three years, but it seemed that, in the end, they had failed.

She heard her son, Arnan, giggle and looked over to see him trying to tuck a flower from the gardens into Beryl’s long braids. Unfortunately, he had pulled the blossom from its stem much too close to the actual petals, and the bud kept falling out of her hair. Like any good nursemaid, she made nonsense noises while the flower fell, trying to distract the boy from any disappointment that he might feel when he couldn’t accomplish the immediate goal that he had had in mind. And so his game changed, and he strained up onto the tips of his toes, trying to start the blossom’s plummet toward the grass at a higher point so that Beryl was forced to make her silly noises for a longer period of time.

Smiling at their game, Taerie once again thanked whichever gods actually bothered to watch over her for the dwarven woman and her willingness to care for the boy. In the beginning, when Arnan had exclusively suckled, it had given the Inquisitor a perverse sense of pleasure to know that her elven son had been fed from the breast of a woman who was not even the least bit elven at all. Just another moment of revenge — another was her son’s name. Arnan might not actually have been a truly Dalish name, but she had chosen to put the syllables together and make it into one: _ar_ for me or my and _nan_ for vengeance. Her son, raised in the diversity of humanity that was gathered in Skyhold, would be her revenge against a sire who had felt that only the _elvhen_ were of value to Thedas.

Because she had learned to value every true and loving expression of humankind in her armies in their stronghold. And among the groups that they had worked with across Thedas, too. Anyone who couldn’t recognize the strength that the diversity of ideas and lore gave to the world was … well, he wasn’t the kind of person that she wanted interacting with her son.

“Cuwwen!” she heard Arnan shout, and when she looked over at him, he was scampering down one of the grassy walkways toward the man whom he more often called “Da.” Rising to her feet, she started toward the pair of them, watching while the commander scooped the little elven boy up and tossed him high in the air. From out of nowhere, a Mabari hound started capering around Cullen’s legs, its tiny tail waggling its entire rear end furiously in the hopes of being included in their game. Uncertain about the dog, she stopped near Beryl and looked down at the dwarf.

“We can bring him in to you, if you’d like to have a rest,” Taerie said in a low voice. “I think we have a longer session with the representatives and the queen still today, so you’d better gather your strength while you can.”

“Thank you, miss … er, Inquisitor,” the dwarf replied, picking up a few of Arnan’s things before she hustled off to her room in the palace.

Turning her attention to her son, she watched while Cullen brought himself down on one knee to allow the boy and the dog to be more on the same level with each other. Her recent interactions with Mabari had been limited to battles against packs of the hounds, and so she was uncertain as to how the dog would react to the grabbing and patting of a small child. But Arnan seemed equally as reluctant as she was feeling, wrapping one arm around Cullen’s neck and pulling his other little hand tightly against his chest. The dog, through some innate understanding of the boy’s uncertainty, flopped down on the ground, rolled onto his back, and started squirming in the grass, his long, spotted legs pumping crazily in the air. Which made Arnan laugh. In the next moment, he had pushed away from Cullen’s arms and thrown himself into the grass beside the Mabari, wriggling and rolling beside the dog in some pure expression of pleasure. At some point, through some silent agreement between the parties, they both stopped, and the hound rolled onto one side, lying completely still while the little boy crawled closer and began his uncertain exploration of the huge animal.

Stepping over to Cullen’s side, she let her shoulder bump against his in a kind of secret signal of her love for him, never letting her eyes leave the duo at their feet. “You’ve let a dog follow you home,” she said accusingly, but in a teasing kind of way. “Are you expecting that it will be allowed to share our bed?”

“Arnan already does,” he admitted, purposefully brushing his fingers against the back of the hand that was dangling near his own. “What’s one more warm body?”

She looked up at him, silently wishing that she had remembered to bring her spectacles with her when she had suggested that Arnan might like to play in the gardens. But even through the blur of her atrocious close-up vision, she knew that he was smiling at her. Looking at her with the kind of devoted, barely restrained love that had lingered on his face for months. Although, if she was completely honest, he looked at Arnan in the same way, as if he were — well, as if he were a Mabari, a war hound trained to protect his master from overwhelming enemy forces. And she loved him even more for it.

Arnan had managed to work up enough courage to actually climb onto the huge keg of a chest that was typical for most Mabari hounds. Stretching out on the dog’s side, the little boy dropped his cheek against the steady rise and fall of the animal’s breathing and clenched and unclenched his hands in the short, dappled fur.

“Or maybe we can just convince Arnan to start using the Mabari as his bed,” Cullen suggested, staring down at the boy and the dog.

“Seriously?” Taerie asked, crossing her arms on her chest and looking up at him. “You’re seriously bringing that beast home with you?”

Shrugging, Cullen replied, “If we still have a home. I mean in Skyhold, of course. As long as we’re together, then I’m home. But I’m beginning to think that the Inquisition has reached the end of its effectiveness or at least our freedom to operate outside of the politics of other kingdoms.” He paused for a moment, and she could feel his eyes on her. “How will you feel about that? In the next few days, we could be uprooted and cast out into the wilds again. Do you want to return to your clan? Would you take Arnan to them?”

When he had finished his questions, she looked up at him and studied his blurry face. As much as he seemed to be asking her plans based on what would benefit her and her son, she knew that he was actually asking for himself. If the Inquisition was disbanded, Cullen might believe that it would also mean an end to her relationship with him. Certainly, they had found a new intimacy in the months since Arnan had been born, but they hadn’t done anything to formalize their positions with each other. He didn’t know whether she would stay or go.

“You know, Commander Rutherford, you’ve put me in the most untenable situation.”

He huffed his breath and turned his attention back to the boy and the dog at their feet.

“Yes, Commander,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper that was meant for his ears only. “You’ve approached me on this topic in the middle of the gardens of Halamshiral, where anyone might suddenly come upon us. Which makes it completely impossible for me to show you how important it is for us to choose our future together.”

“Taerie,” he whispered in return, his hope clear in each syllable of her name.

“If you come to my chambers tonight, we can finish our discussion of this subject,” she said firmly. “Especially if Arnan continues to believe that the best place for him to sleep is on top of this dog.”


	7. A Final Confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lavellan confronts her former lover and tries to point out to him how stupid his goals are.

Taerie pushed forward, away from the portals and what seemed to be statues that dotted the landscape. No matter what she had expected to find when they had followed the Qunari invaders — and thwarted their plans to set off a chain of explosions throughout Halamshiral — she hadn’t expected the petrified figures of what looked like members of the invading force. Something — someone — else was here, someone with a great deal of magical power that she wasn’t at all certain that she could counter. Tightening her grip on her bow, she leaned around the granite shoulder of one of the statues and scanned the landscape ahead of her.

In the distance, she could see a horned figure moving away from her, most likely the _Viddasala_ , the Qunari responsible for controlling magic and its uses in the areas under that nation’s control. The foreign woman moved forward quickly, as if she was pursuing someone whom Taerie couldn’t see, and the Inquisitor slipped along the ground, avoiding anything that might alert the pair ahead of her to her presence.

She saw the Qunari raise the spear that she was carrying and then she, too, became a statue, frozen in her threatening pose, unable to send forward the weapon that was gripped forever between her fingers, ineffectual and useless. Taerie was suddenly filled with a gripping dread: it was almost like she could feel fingers clenching around her stomach, but it was nothing like the nausea of being pregnant. It was uncertainty, fear, the terror of what she would see when she entered the next clearing.

That sense of knowing that she wasn’t prepared.

That sense that someone who used magics beyond her comprehension was waiting.

That sense that she knew who it was.

And then, it all was true.

“Solas,” she said, waiting while her former lover stopped and then slowly turned to face her. Across the grasses that lay between them, she studied him and the new, gleaming armor that he had taken to wearing. Her gut clenched again, more tightly this time, but she pushed the sensation to one side, determined to learn as much as she could from what she was certain would be a brief encounter with him. Because she knew, somehow, that he wouldn’t or couldn’t take her with him.

Honestly, she wouldn’t and couldn’t go. Not since Arnan had come into her life.

After a while, she had had enough of listening to his logic, because he seemed to have a reasonable argument for every choice that he had made, no matter what she said in response. The ancient _elvhen_ had chosen to represent themselves as gods, so he had separated the people from those who would have ruled over them. An excuse. He had slept for generations because of his loss of power. A hedge. And he was the only one who could return the elves to their proper relationship with magic and the dream realm. Hubris.

She nearly laughed aloud at his words. Instead, she stared at him, crossing her arms on her chest, while she said, “You’ve obviously been spending too much time alone. I sincerely doubt that you’ve tried out any of the arguments on real people, especially anyone from the Inquisition. But can you explain to me how, after fighting against Corypheus with me and the others — a battle that I’m just beginning to understand that you brought upon Thedas by your miscalculations — that you can actually spout exactly the same words that that demon did? How can you think that you alone know what’s right for the entire world?”

Solas frowned at her. “You do realize that, if my plan had been successful, we wouldn’t be having this conversation? I would have already renewed the connection of the _elvhen_ to the powers beyond the Veil.”

“And destroyed the majority of humanity across Thedas.” Taerie frowned over at her former lover, making her voice as cutting as she could, pouring all of the days of heartbreak that she had endured because of him into her words. “How many centuries has it been since you severed the connection between the _elvhen_ and magic? You do understand that, because of the choice that you made, the people that you claim to love were enslaved? That we have suffered for generations under the thumb of humans and Qunari who have betrayed and used us in the name of their own religions?”

“It all will be righted,” Solas said, “when I rectify my miscalculation.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of a god — oh, excuse me, you didn’t want to be a god, did you? But I’ve never heard of a god making a mistake.” She sneered at him viciously, hoping without any real hope that she might get through to him. “Of course, that would mean that you’ve made two mistakes. At least. First, you broke the connection between your people and magic. And then you trusted an insane, demon-infested Tevinter magister to make the connections you needed to bring your people back. If I meant to be truly cruel, I would add the mistake of believing that your people would remember you fondly when you chose to abandon them and sleep for centuries.”

The elven mage stared at her, but she could see that he was fighting to keep his face impassive, ignoring the anger that was bubbling just below his surface.

Taerie continued. “And I’m not at all certain whether you now have some kind of godly power to use, but you might want to start determining how many of the elves that you’ve got flocking to your cause actually would qualify as _elvhen_ any more. After all, slavery makes men do cruel things to each other, especially to women. Can you imagine how many of your female _elvhen_ were forced to submit to the men who owned them? Can you think of how many of them were sent off — over a hundred generations — into the wilderness with their half-breed children? In all of Thedas, how many true, pure-bred elves do you actually think there are? The clans have made a habit of accepting city elves back into their midst, and I’m not certain that they’ve ever traced genealogies back to make certain that they were elf-y enough for admission. I will pretty much guarantee that you’ll lose — say — eighty percent of your armies when you deactivate your barrier. But then again, everyone will be dead except your twenty percent of actually pure-blooded elves.”

“It will be a beginning, then,” he replied through tightly gritted teeth. “They can all learn the old ways and re-establish our kingdom.”

“Really?” She shifted on her heels and raised a hand in front of her, as if she could create her own barrier between her and her former lover. Ticking off her points on her fingers, she continued. “So you lose eighty percent of your people simply because they don’t meet an ancient definition for the _elvhen_. Then you subject them to a life-altering transition from the past that they’ve known for years and expect their minds to adjust in a matter of moments. These people have lived with a certain set of tales, stories in which you’re painted as a trickster and a traitor to the _elvhen_. What’s it really going to take to make them forget the lore that they’ve clung to for generations? How many minds will break when you force a new understanding of the world on them?”

“The truth will heal them. When they understand …”

“The truth will break them, because it’s completely opposite everything that they have ever known. But let’s just say that three-quarters of your remaining _elvhen_ don’t go insane after they learn the truth. That’s — what? — fifteen percent of your original forces.”

Solas sighed. “Can you really think so little of the people who gave you birth? Who protected you from those who would enslave you and gave you the choice to live as a free elf?”

“Free? If you believe that living in the forest, moving when the locals have begun to think it’s time to take up arms against a clan, frightened that at any moment you might be captured and forced into slavery is freedom, then you have a very different definition than I do. In one way or another, I have been controlled by the demands of other people for my entire life.” She sighed and dropped her hand. “No more.”

He considered her and then looked pointedly at the other hand, the one that held the green swirling of the Anchor. “As long as that poisons you, you have no choice.”

“Then remove it. Take it away as you’ve always wanted to.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. You’ve polluted it, and I could never cleanse the taint. The best it can be is a beacon that I can use to keep track of you. You will be coming after me, won’t you? Raising your pitiful little armies of the diversity of humanity and bringing them to right what you believe is a great injustice?”

A cold fear settled around her heart and snaked down her spine. He could track her through the swirl of green that was constantly pulsing in her left hand. But more than that, her former lover might find out about his son, which might mean that he would seek them out, believing that life among the _elvhen_ was better for the boy. Suppressing the shudder of panic that raced through her, Taerie clamped her jaws shut, determined not to say another word that might give Solas a reason to pursue her.

“Yes,” she spat at him. “I’ll be coming for you.”

He shrugged and turned away. “Until we meet again.” With that, he entered one of the _eluvian_ that littered the landscape and disappeared.


	8. A Severance Package

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lavellan struggles to understand what's possible now that she knows her former lover's plot.

Taerie stumbled between the petrified remains of the invading Qunari forces, back the way she had come, back to some place and time that might actually make sense.

Solas. It had been Solas all along. He was the one who had broken the connection between the original _elvhen_ and magic, creating the barrier of the Veil. He was the one who had tempted and teased Corypheus into trying to use the Anchor to tear down that barrier. And now, he was the one who was determined to bring back the world that he had known, the land of the ancient _elvhen_ , a place that wasn’t even a myth — let alone a memory — for most of the elves of Thedas.

How could he consider it? What was he thinking? She had tried to believe it when he had told her about the ancient _elvhen_ , but it had been so very difficult to push aside everything that had formed the foundations of her life among the Dalish. And still, she knew that there were elves who had gone to him, to the promises that he had whispered to them and that had spread like a wildfire throughout the elven people.

She’d only been guessing when she’d argued with him about the losses he would suffer when he dropped the Veil. But she knew that, even if she did survive, even if Arnan was still alive and with her after the transition, she knew that she couldn’t be part of Solas’s vision for the future. At that very moment, she didn’t know how she would cope with the need to run from her son’s father, to hide from him in a world that he had created for the people who believed the story that he was weaving for them, to live without …

Without Cullen.

She stumbled again, reaching out to steady herself on an completely inappropriate portion of one of the Qunari statue’s anatomy — well, only if the creature had been alive. Snatching her hand away, she pressed it against her midsection, trying to calm the clenching of fear that had suddenly started inside her. She could lose … lose everything. Her son. The love that had rescued her from the pit of despair where Solas had cast her by leaving the moment that Corypheus was defeated. The friends who had remained at her side despite the dangers that had continued to surround them.

And then she was among them again, the core members of the Inquisition, and she was dragging them with her, through the _eluvian_ , back to the gardens of Halamshiral. With a few curt phrases, she sent them away, ignoring their stares and the questions that were called toward her. After all, she had ordered them to bring all of the members of the Inquisition to her chambers, and she knew that she wasn’t going to be able to begin to ease the roil of her stomach until she had gathered Arnan into her arms. Lengthening her stride, she slammed through the door to her room, skidding to a stop when Beryl looked up at her in surprise.

“Mama!” Arnan cried, wriggling in his nursemaid’s arms and trying to escape the small metal tub that was sitting in front of the fireplace.

“No, stay there, my little one,” Taerie said, crossing as quickly as she could to her son’s side. “You know that you need your bath, especially after playing in the garden today.”

“Want doggie,” he said in a demanding little voice while Beryl scrubbed him with a soft cloth. “Want my doggie.”

“I think that Commander Rutherford has the doggie, Arnan. You’ll have to ask him.”

“Where my Da?” Arnan stood up and walked in the tub to her side, reaching out toward her, his fingers all extended and eager for her touch. Beryl handed her a towel, and Taerie scooped him up in her arms, moving to a chair beside the fire. “Da and doggie. Where my doggie?”

Taerie had to stop herself when the urge to squeeze her son tightly against her chest threatened to overwhelm her. Instead, she toweled the little body dry and slipped her son into his nightclothes, kissing him and tickling him and teasing him until she heard one of her guards clear his throat behind her. Telling Arnan that she would come to tuck him into his bed in the attached room, she entrusted him to Beryl’s care while she rose and straightened her uniform.

“The Inquisition is here,” the guard reported and then stepped into the hall. In moments, the inner circle of the organization that had occupied her attention and her service for the past three years, and her main advisors — Spymaster Leliana, Ambassador Josephine, and Commander Cullen — stepped to the front of the group. The Mabari, which had entered her room on the commander’s heels, started snuffling around the room and then plopped itself on its haunches in front of the door that led to where Arnan was sleeping.

But she couldn’t deal with that right now. She had to clarify some things with the Inquisition before she could go and kiss her son on the forehead and wish him a good night.

“I’m certain that you’ve all heard from the people who went with me to chase down the Qunari what we encountered,” she said, not wanting to wait for one of them to stumble over bringing up her former lover’s name. “And we now know that Solas was behind everything. Even when he was working in our midst, he had his own ambitions for the Anchor and the Veil. Now, it’s his only ambition.”

She detailed her conversation with him, leaving out the more intimate moments — the ones that had forced her to struggle with her ideas of what might have been — until the moment that he had disappeared into the _eluvian_. Then she looked around at their stony faces and concluded her report. “I have to believe that the Inquisition can’t make a move against him as long as he has the ability to track me through whatever connection he has with the Anchor.”

“What do you expect us to do then, Inquisitor?” Cullen asked her, his eyes narrowing while he studied her face.

“There’s only one thing to do, and I’m going to allow all of you to make the final decision as to who and how you’ll deal with the aftermath. First, though,” she said, starting toward the door to Arnan’s room, “I’m going to tuck in my son. When I return, I want you all ready to cut off my arm.”

She heard the gasp, but she ignored it and the hissing murmur of their voices while she walked away. Reaching for the handle, she looked down at the Mabari, and the dog gazed back up at her in return. Reluctantly, she placed her hand on the hound’s head, allowing her fingers to brush through the bristly texture of the fur.

“You may come in, sir,” she whispered, fighting against the urge to turn and counter the arguments from the members of the Inquisition. “But I have one condition: you have to become the protector for my son that I can’t be in the future. Do you agree?”

The dog tipped his head to one side and studied her for a long moment. Then he _whuffed_ at her and nodded, rising to his feet and scratching eagerly at the gilt-trimmed door. Taking that as the Mabari’s acceptance of her offer, she went into Arnan’s bedroom with the hound on her heels.


End file.
